Create Recovery Usb

[Giulia Satmary]

Im getting the black screen and the 2x blink code telling me I have BIOS corruption. I no longer have the HP_TOOLS partition on the hard drive so I need to create the USB recovery tool. I went through the instructions from this page -en/document/c02693833 but I can't create the recovery tool because the option in Step 12, Figure 4 "Create an HP BIOS Recovery USB flash drive to recover another HP device" is grayed out. WHY in the heck is that option grayed out? I've tried to create this tool using both FAT32 and NTFS formatted USB drives as well as a 16GB USB drive, an 8 GB drive and a 2 GB drive. I tried creating the tool on four different computers and all end with the same result: the option to create the tool is grayed out.

Thanks for the response. How can I use this to run diagnostics on a pc that is inaccessible because of the corrupted bios and nothing but a blank screen? I can't access the BIOS startup menu or anything else.

By the way, as an HP employee, do you have any idea why I can't make a USB bios recovery tool and why the option to make it is grayed out? That's the million dollar question I'm trying to get answered. Thanks.

One reason i can think of for the option to create BIOS recovery to be grayed out is if you are not running the latest BIOS on the unit the latest BIOS when installing should create a backup image on to HP tools on your PC using that you can create a BIOS recovery, that's just my opinion.. there can be other reasons as well

I'm not sure I quite understood your response. I'm not trying to create the backup tool while updating the bios on the broken down pc. I'm trying to create a recovery tool on a different pc so I can use it to restore the bios on the broken down system. Are you telling me that the USB recovery tool has to be created on the same pc it's going to be used on to recover the BIOS? It says nothing about that on the page with the instructions on how to create the recovery tool. Based on the instructions, the recovery tool is created from an InstallShield Wizard extracted from an .exe file that's downloaded from HP's website. It says you can create the tool from the executable AFTER a pc gets a corrupted bios by using an entirely different computer and the HP_TOOLS recovery partition is no longer present on the broken system. I'll post the link to the instructions again: -en/document/c02693833

I'm still seeking info on how to make the USB recovery tool. Isn't there ANYONE in HP's support team that has an answer to my question? Why make an executable file to create a USB recovery tool that doesn't actually allow you to make the dang recovery tool?

If no one at HP has an answer, can someone at HP please tell me if it's possible to create the tool manually from the files extracted from the .exe file? Before it blocks me from creating the USB recovery tool, 15 files and 1 folder are extracted to a folder located in ...C:\Program Files (x86)\SP68425. These are the filenames:

The folder extracted from the .exe is called CrisisFolder and it has 10 additional files in it with filenames like CryptRSA.efi, HpBiosMgmt.efi, and so on. If I knew how the InstallShield Wizard is supposed to arrange everything on the USB drive, I could work around the aggravating "grayed out" issue. Thanks.

I got it to go. Took me a few days scouring the net and poking around - the answer is simple and it is sad that HP made this so difficult. You can use just the official tools with no weird bootleg untrustworthy downloads from third parties. I am putting this out there so someone else can benefit - hopefully HP does not delete this post.

PS: I had a totally bricked dv7t. we have had 5 out of the 50 we bought go the same way so far - just failed for no special reason - power on results in just black screen and caps lock blinking twice and fan roaring. We had no UEFI partition because we had replaced the hard drives with SSD and were running linux anyway with legacy boot mode in BIOS.

apply the rename fixes specified above (.bin to .fd and .ini to .ini.orig) then run the insydeflash executable - the create recovery usb flash drive option is no longer greyed out - choose this option and you will now have installable bios files in the USB Hewlett-Packard->BIOS->Current directory

plug in the power - the computer will start and end up at a screen that says cmos corrupt hit whatever function key it says or ctrl-alt-del - it will either take you to another screen about running diagnostics where you hit the function key it says or it will just go there automatically - I think I had to hit F2.

You now get the UEFI diagnostics menu booted from flash where you can flash the bios you have on the USB - just browse to the BIOS->Current directory and select the xxxx.bin file - you can also run diagnostics to see if something is legitimately broken or if it is just unstable BIOS in these things.

After following on screen instructions and observing reboot you end up at a screen about having no boot partition - you can now shut down and put it back together and remember to set legacy boot in BIOS if you are running linux like me.

This was exactly what I was looking for and was a great solution. The only thing I would add is that a few weird things happen when you go to copy over the Surface Book recovery/boot image files to the flash drive:

I was nervous that there was something inherent in the files/folder structure that I would mess up by deleting what was on the existing recovery disk, or that it would only overwrite files that it needed to and some existing files would stay and cause issues. To get around this, I opened the folders that were there and cleared their contents, then copied the files over from the folders that matched in the Surface Book recovery files.

I've been working on how to create custom recovery partition and here's what I came up with, it's not "perfect" or "pretty", but it gets job done. I only tested this so far on one laptop with BIOS & MBR partition scheme, so I can't say it will work with UEFI & GPT.

I've just restored my latest backup using Time Machine on a new MacBook, upon re-checking all the iCloud settings, I found out the Find My Mac can't be activated because it's missing the Recovery Partition.

Is there a better way to create the Recovery Partition without reinstalling the macOS? Or without using another Mac, because I don't have another one and there's no Genius Bar (or Apple Store) in this forsaken country of mine, not to mention I live in a remote little town.

Again, make sure that you quit the installer before you use it, so that you can either copy it or move it outside of Applications folder. Make sure you make a copy and not just an alias. Then when you use the installer, it won't self delete.

I suggest that you review how your disk is partitioned. High sierra introduces APFS and it handles partitions differently than HFS+. Mac Mini is generally older disk technology, and favors HFS. High Sierra defaults to APFS, regardless of the technology it is installing. Mac OS Disk Utility lets you manually reset and repair your obviously confused partitions.

Partition a Physical Disk may help you to understand why some parts of your running system cannot recognize Recovery in other parts of your system. I used Apple's information to reset a struggling system to HFS+ from default APFS. After the reset to HFS+ that older Fusion system self-updated to APFS without Recovery problems.

You don't need another Mac machine. You need a USB device to hold the macOS installer, that is your second Mac. Every mac owner in a rural area needs a USB installer for each macOS version that is used. Installer good for unlimited Mac machines.

Now, You live off the beaten path (the best way to live) so you may have a USB stick to install Sierra 10.12.6. Without a stick you would be forced to upgrade to High Sierra, as that is al that Apple downloads now.

Unfortunately, reinstall is your only option, if your Recovery partition is damaged. It may be that your connection to Apple's server farms is corrupted by rural technology coupled with distance. But would not leave that to chance.

We had doubts about updating our old 2011 Mac Book. Glad we did. You will need a USB to effect repair safely. Also good you have a pair of Apples. Update one and use the other to restore for another attempt if connection fails. Connection can fail in two ways, as you know.

Understood. Now further, Read carefully my two previous posts. 10.12.6 upgrade to 10.13.2 is painless here in metropolitan Canada. Friends in the hills are still using Lion. That said, the update to APFS is worth those few attempts. Especially if you move files around in Finder.

Finally, there are no issues system-wise with 2-step Sierra HFS to High Sierra HFS+ to High Sierra APFS... personally though, got lost in the increased stability of HFS+ and hosetly just forgot to update my desktop staple diet to APFS until it suddenly occured to me, a few days ago. Anyway, take your time. Downloading installer, a day. Update another day. Keep your personal data safe.

Because it took more than two and a half hours yesterday for me to reinstall the macOS on the old MacBook, seems like it downloaded the macOS Sierra via internet. (I had to erase the HD because I was selling it)

The initial reason the Recovery Partition was gone because I restored the latest Time Machine backup on the new MacBook, but I like the fact that everything is like the last time I used the old MacBook.

Just to note, there probably won't be anymore point updates to Sierra before the release of High Sierra (Can't really speculate though), but many people download the latest full installers and run them over their existing partitions in lieu of using the App Store Software Update feature.

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